The gritty making of a tin-top prodigy

Britain's newest touring car star has fought back from on-track restrictions and off-track adversity to snatch a major title by 24 - and his career promises plenty more

Ash Sutton will be beginning only his third season as a British Touring Car Championship racer as the defending champion. The last man to do that was Fabrizio Giovanardi in 2009 but, by that stage, the Italian was already a European, British, Italian and Spanish tin-top title winner.

Previous to that, the last returning champion who had minimal experience was Jo Winkelhock, who came back to the UK to defend the number one on his Schnitzer BMW after the experienced German clinched the honours in his maiden BTCC season in 1993.